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There is a scene in “Rocky II” in which Rocky Balboa’s crusty old trainer, Mickey, tries to talk the retired heavyweight from Philadelphia out of attempting a comeback in a rematch against champion Apollo Creed. Demonstrating that Rocky’s left eye is too badly damaged for him to consider entering the ring against such a dangerous opponent, which could only end with Creed completing the demolition project he had so advanced in their previous slugfest, Mickey lands a couple of open-hand slaps to the left side of the plucky...

I'm worried, my friends.
I am worried that we are in a place where we are setting ourselves up to over-promise, and under-deliver. The Fight, I'm talking about.
On May 2, we are going to get a couple million folks who really never watch boxing, maybe never have, or maybe last did when Tyson was still the Baddest Man on the Planet, instead of a cartoon character. (Literally, he has his own cartoon, I'm not busting chops!)
And many of those folks will have been lured in by the hype. They are hearing the trumpets blaring, and seeing snippets...

Starting with this column I'll be doing one article per week, Countdown To Mayweather-Pacquiao, until the fight, examining it from different angles. I'll cover their best fights, what a win or a loss means for each fighter, who will win and why, and more.
Is the upcoming spectacle between welterweight title holders Floyd Mayweather 47-0 (26) and Manny Pacquiao 57-5-2 (38) a legitimate Super Fight? The obvious answer to that has to be yes since it will no doubt be the highest grossing fight in fistic history. And a lot of that has to do with...

The biggest fight of his life looms, duh, and one might think that Manny Pacquiao might not be OK with his trainer jetting off to China, and working with another one of his clients, Zou Shiming, for an IBF flyweight title fight to take place this Saturday.
But no…
Pacman told Dedham Freddie that Shiming's best chance of winning comes with Roach in that corner, and he gave his blessing for the seven time BWAA Trainer of the Year to fly to hang with Shiming for the week, get it done vs. Amnat Ruenroeng, and then scoot back to oversee the...

INDIO, CALIF-Mexico’s Pablo Cano won a slugfest against Dominican Republic’s Juan Abreu by majority decision after 10 brutal rounds at Fantasy Springs Casino on Friday.
Before more than 2,200 fans in the packed arena at the Indio casino, welterweight contender Cano (29-4-1, 21 Kos) had a little bit too much experience and used it against the hard-hitting Abreu (18-2, 17 Kos). Both welters absorbed crackling shots from each other.
Cano and Abreu were late replacements for the IBF world title fight defense by Randy Caballero, who...

Miguel Cotto is a Hall of Fame talent, that is pretty inarguable, I think. But the Puerto Rican hitter is drawing some Twitter fire from those who want the 34-year-old to put his WBC middleweight title on the line in June, against the man many of those naysayers state is THE MAN at 160 pounds, Gennady Golovkin.
Yes, many of the masses, judging by the query I put out on Thursday night, seek a Cotto vs. Golovkin showdown, which they believe has Big Drama Show written all over it. Indeed, many of the respondents see the drama falling in favor...

Now that Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao have agreed to face each other on May 2nd, and Saul Alvarez has signed on to fight James Kirkland the following weekend, WBC lineal middleweight champ Miguel Cotto 39-4 (32) is out in the cold, left with the worst possible opponent option—cough, Golovkin, cough-- imaginable.
Or is he?
Last June Cotto stopped Sergio Martinez 51-3-2 (28) in 10 rounds to win the WBC middleweight title. Martinez was the lineal middleweight champ being that he beat the man who beat the man etc…..going back to...

I try not to watch boxing with my dad. It’s not his fault. I just can’t stand to hear him compare every single fighter ever, regardless of weight class or boxing ability, to Muhammad Ali. It drives me crazy, mostly because I’ve heard the same thing over and over again for over 30 years now. Yes, I realize that one day when my dad is gone that I’ll miss it. But right now, it drives me crazy.
Pops is part of boxing’s most established and celebrated cult: the cult of Ali. We get it, people. He was great. But others have been, too,...

A pair of powerful female fight cards await fans in both women’s MMA and professional boxing on Saturday.
In Rosarito Beach, Mexico, WBO flyweight world titlist Kenia Enriquez (13-0, 6 Kos) of nearby Tijuana meets former champion Melissa McMorrow (9-5-3) of San Francisco, California. On the same card legendary Jackie Nava defends the WBC and WBA super bantamweight belts against Mayra Gomez. Both fights take place at Centro de Convenciones. Azteca TV will televise.
Up north in Los Angeles, MMA queen Ronda Rousey (10-0) defends her...

The changing of the landscape in this boxing world of ours has been something to behold in recent months. Really, the shifts have been seismic, and tremors are still being felt, really. Local to NYC fight fans got a taste when they learned that the Wladimir Klitschko-Bryant Jennings scrap that was headed to Brooklyn, at Barclays, got shifted over the MSG (April 25; total card yet to be announced), and instead, they will be able to check out arguably a deeper card in BK on April 11.
That event is topped by a Danny Garcia-Lamont Peterson...

Oh, the eyeballs available on March 7. Keith Thurman gets it.
"One Time," the 26-year-old Florida resident who has built himself into a player at 147, and someone who is seen as being on a short-ish list for ones to watch close in the near future, when the Mayweathers and Pacquiaos get touched by time in a way that an application of Just For Men can't address, told me that he is quite cognizant of what can happen on March 7.
On that night, on NBC PROPER, no mere cable cousin, he will be fighting Robert Guerrero, certain to be a stern...

There is a saying among compulsive gamblers: The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing.
Perhaps the opposite is true of certain fringe boxing contenders who, for one magic moment, rise above their circumstances and become champions. For those predetermined by fate to fail even when they succeed, the next worst thing to fighting for a title and losing can be fighting for a title and winning.
The late Steve Little is in a Hall of Fame – the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame – but there never will be a time when any...

So it looks like our long national nightmare is over. Manny and Money are finally going to get it on. Since the announcement last week, the internet has been ablaze with huzzahs and hosannas. The ship finally came in, boys! But not to everyone. If you peek around the edges, you will find a small vocal minority that questions not only the timing of the fight, but its very relevance. By and large, these complaints come not from the casual sports fan who quite likely can’t name another fighter outside of the aforementioned two, but rather...

There isn't a podium large enough for this type of announcement. "Boxing legions," states a boisterous orator, "lend me your ears...or better yet your wallets."
We asked and they delivered. Sort of. Remember the old days when we'd subscribe to a magazine or order something through the mail? Although some wait times haven't changed too much to this day, we were all accustomed to the disclaimer which read, "please allow six to eight weeks for processing and delivery."
Friday's long awaited and evisceration style of gut wrenching delay was...

STEVE AND LIVVY CUNNINGHAM VOTED BWAA MOST COURAGEOUS; MATTHYSSE-MOLINA SNAG BWAA’S FIGHT OF THE YEAR
Imagine being a parent, trying to stay strong, while holding your 9-year-old daughter’s tiny hand as she lies there on a gurney in a pre-op ward awaiting a heart transplant. Imagine battling the fears that it might be the last time you’ll see her alive.
Now imagine trying to balance all of that while getting ready to engage some monster who wants to take your head off.
You have a good dose of what heavyweight Steve Cunningham and...

So little time, so much to do to get ready for the stiffest test of a Hall of Famer-level career: how will Manny Pacquiao be getting ready to fight the defensive master Floyd Mayweather on May 2?
Indeed, the count-down to that scrap is an abbreviated one compared to most runups to big bouts Pacman has signed on for. Usually, he'll do 12 weeks of camp. For this one, the big one, he will get to Wild Card on March 8, Coach Roach told me, and so really, camp will consist of two weeks of getting in game shape, and six weeks of boxing.
"Manny...

So they are saying this one, the Big One, The Fight, #MayPac, it's our Super Bowl.
Certainly, from the monetary figures being thrown around, the analogy works to an extent. So I ran with that (foot)ball when I chatted up Dedham Freddie Roach, the Massachusetts-born ex hitter and current tutor to The Congressman from Sarangani province, Manny Pacman.
OK Freddie, the Patriots Super Bowl buzz still lingers like the aroma of fresh-baked cookies in the household, a month after the victory over Seattle.
Do you see Manny as the Tom Brady in this...

“I didn’t want that fight. I didn’t want to fight Harold Johnson. They had to pay me a lot of money to fight that animal.” - Willie Pastrano
Harold Johnson was a licensed union drummer and as his astonishing fight career wound down he could be found in clubs with his band “Harold Johnson and the Contenders.” The story goes that when Johnson ran out of money, he would pawn his drums and then take a fight, explaining that spate of ten round decisions over the likes of John Alford (23-15-3) and Eddie Jones (7-5) in the late...

Nobody knew it then, but separate boxing matches on Feb. 24 and 25, 1989, might have made for a classic representation of the familiar two-ships-passing-in-the-night theme, even if those ships were 2,500 miles apart and one of them was sailing in the Nevada desert.
On Feb. 24 of that year, the seemingly stalled career of Roberto Duran, 37, was revived with his exhilarating, 12-round split decision over WBC middleweight champion Iran Barkley in snowy Atlantic City, N.J., a fight which the “Hands of Stone,” a 3-1 underdog, would later...

Well, it was tougher and lasted longer than most thought it would, but middleweight champ--yes I'm referring to him as the champ since he is clearly the top dog in the division--Gennady Golovkin 32-0 (29) dominated challenger Martin Murray 29-2-1 (12) this past weekend. Murray lasted until the 11th round before the fight was correctly halted with him having nothing left to offer Golovkin other than sheer will and toughness. But once again Gennady's two handed punching power, physical strength, ability to cut off the ring and mix up his...